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DeSci stories: bringing back Neanderthals, fixing NIH gaps, & data
Recorded: June 4, 2025 Duration: 0:22:47Space Recording
Short Summary
In a recent discussion, the DSI ecosystem is urged to refine its narrative and storytelling, with a focus on strategic partnerships and innovative funding mechanisms. The launch of a new marketing cohort with Farkaster aims to enhance outreach, while the conversation highlights trends in scientific funding and the importance of continuous dialogue for growth.
Full Transcription
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right, welcome back to this week's episode of the DSi Mic.
This is Erin McGinnis.
And really this week's space is more of a kind of contemplation exercise or question
that I think is really important for the DSI ecosystem to be asking itself, especially those with more
marketing and communication type of skill sets. And that's just around what is the narrative or
what stories should DSI be focused on and what story is currently being told as well as what story could be told. And a lot of this kind of broader conversation or thoughts I've had on this so far are related
to people outside of the DSi ecosystem not having as much insight into the other projects being
built as well as some of the more technical projects
or projects that are actually getting traction with real users or real scientists are more
focused on those other aspects than telling that story on behalf of the whole DSiT ecosystem.
DSi ecosystem. And kind of a secondary part of this is also just getting to the core of what
is DSi really all about and making sure that that messaging is in alignment. And some of that is
tied in with certain projects, making it into that broader sphere or assumptions people have of what DeSci
should really be about, whether that's things like bringing Neanderthals or dinosaurs back
and doing these real moonshot type of science discoveries and experiments, which is part of the story that I think DSI originally was selling out into the world.
But in practicality of what research is actually getting funded, it's really not all that different than what's currently getting funded by the traditional model.
model. And so if DSI is really about kind of some of these moonshot type of ideas or solving
different gaps or doing science that otherwise wouldn't get done, then that should also be
happening. So that's kind of part one of the inspiration of this question of just what are the stories or narrative that Desai
should really be focused on. And then another kind of category that Desai is also, I think,
selling out into the world so far is this idea of it being a funding mechanism to really fill in different gaps that the traditional system aren't supporting well,
or additional gaps that are now showing up due to different funding cuts, especially NIH funding cuts,
or different organizations kind of rerouting their resources or funding as well.
kind of rerouting their resources or funding as well. And when thinking about that, and then just
the scale of capital that's been deployed within the DeSci ecosystem so far, it's really not
comparable. Yes, one could say that the DeSci ecosystem is a bit earlier on in its maturity and also doesn't have maybe an entire
country's taxpayership funneled into it. But it does have a bunch of different coordination
mechanisms and systems and opportunities that could be tapping into much wider capital pools that it doesn't really seem
like that's been explored at scale effectively yet, especially when even thinking about how much
private funding through philanthropists, family offices, different foundations is funneled into
different scientific pursuits and interests of some of those different organizations or families to really push the world forward.
And in theory, that should be what DSI could be helping to coordinate, connecting those different funders, the capital, or other resources they might have
the capital, or other resources they might have into some of these moonshot type of ideas
that really are too risky for traditional committees to be able to justify back to the
rest of their group or their organization, especially if there are other risks that
might come with it as well. A kind of related conversation that has popped up a handful of times lately is just around
information hazards and the opportunity that DSI or structure within DSI might be able
to create actually really proper peer review type of boards and make sure that people who are experts in
different domains are actually evaluating the research that is being proposed in those spaces.
And if you're not as familiar with the peer review process right now, usually a researcher might create some type of proposal.
And I guess leading up to even doing that experiment, they have to submit it to the
institutional review board or a committee of people at their institution who have some type of background in science or ethics so that they can evaluate, is their project
safe from an ethical perspective for the most part or from like a cruelty perspective?
However, most of the people on that committee or institutional review board usually don't have the necessary background or
expertise in all of these different scientific domains to really be able to properly evaluate
what different experiments might be proposed or what different knowledge that might be acquired through those experiments might come out of it.
And so this idea of a more decentralized research, institutional review board, evaluator committee
is another opportunity that really hasn't been explored in the de-sci space yet.
really hasn't been explored in the desize space yet, centered around this idea of, okay,
if there's only a certain number of truly deep experts in different fields around the world,
they have this stake in seeing their field do things properly and progress forward in
interesting types of ways. So they would be the most critical as well as the most informed
to actually evaluate different rising experimental designs in their field
and would be incentivized to make sure that someone's not doing something
potentially sketchy or risky or unethical as well.
So that's another opportunity that Desai could be addressing and I haven't really heard that type of story or narrative told as an option for what Desai could
be pursuing. And kind of tying back to the original point of some of these moonshot ideas, like Neanderthals or dinosaurs, or recently coming into the scientific discussion is just around gene editing of different embryos and how just like the cultural mental shift has started to happen, whereas even three years ago,
a couple of years ago, people doing that type of work were completely criticized and ridiculed
and sent into prison, whereas now that type of work is being celebrated. So this broader discussion around narrative and the stories that different entire ecosystems and spaces,
especially in the context of science, what those stories and narratives are being told,
can really shift public opinion as well as capital and resources as well as manpower behind some of these different ideas to be able to push it forward in meaningful ways,
as well as ways that can really end up having that type of positive impact.
Another element related to funding as well is if there are these more proper expert-led institutional review boards evaluating the safety from a global hazard perspective,
That might be able to create more assurance for different funding groups, whether that's individual funders or foundations or governments or universities as well. a proposal gets approved by this more decentralized global institutional review board of people
that are actually qualified to assess that potential research project, then they have a
lot more assurance that at least they did their due diligence and that might allow them to be able to place riskier bets or fund riskier
scientific pursuits that prior to this they just couldn't choose that option even if they wanted
to because they wouldn't be able to justify it if something went wrong or if that information
was then used down the line in some type of negative type of
way, it'd be tied back to them. Whereas with this, they would be able to kind of shift some of that
liability or blame and say, nope, hey, actually, we did everything right. And to the greatest
ability that was possible based on the leading experts in these spaces at that time. So from kind of that connection point into the traditional scientific sphere as well,
it might be able to unlock or enable funding allocation that is already being attributed to different spaces
to actually be able to go into some of the cooler and more awesome science or discoveries that could
be taking place but aren't just due to some of that perceived risk or liability reason right now.
And a lot of this ends up tying back to the idea of where did the data even come from to begin with? And what does that entire data and information, knowledge sharing flow look like?
And the idea of first off, verifying some of that data and then being able to create
a data provenance trail where that can be assigned back to the original researcher or
whoever's contributing that data.
Then that could also have ties to their institution or to different funders as well.
And then as that data kind of flows through that whole process, maybe even starting with
the hypothesis or the idea level of it, and then going into actually conducting
that experiment, creating or collecting that data, and then the analyses and computation done on it
as well. Then there could be opportunity for recognition and attribution to be given to different people conducting more of the analysis or code elements into actually making this data
into something that is translatable and interesting to the rest of the world.
In addition to all of the different lab technicians and other folks that might have been part of this research as well,
and other folks that might have been part of this research as well,
DSI and some of the different data pipelines would be able to create all those different
connection points in this immutable type of way, even if that person leaves that institution or
if that data leaves that institution as well. then that recognition can go back to all of the right people if maybe a publication comes out of it down the line or some other type of intellectual property.
But within that whole flow as well, there's a lot of trust assumptions being made.
Trust in the sense that you're trusting the data was actually created or collected in this
experiment. And it wasn't just AI generated or fabricated or manipulated in other types of ways.
And then you're trusting that the computation that was claimed to have happened on it
actually happened and that p-hacking isn't
happening or splicing out and throwing out data that doesn't support whatever interesting finding
the lead researcher is trying to pursue or support. And then there's trust that if that researcher
shares that data with someone else that they'll get credit for it,
especially if a publication might come out of it. And so throughout that whole pipeline,
there are a lot of trust assumptions being made. And trust is kind of a mechanism that decentralized systems, especially with TEs, different ledger technologies,
are really able to address in a way that prior technologies weren't able to support in that same type of manner.
And so even possibly using some of these technologies in these very traditional scientific workflows, solving those real problems for scientists that are existing today. different pipelines or systems that previously took a long time to be able to have all the right
check marks in place or be able to run a similar type of analysis on different data sets that
weren't maybe formatted exactly the right way, but still being able to have trust that the same type of methods were applied across
the board. So all of these different technical elements tie into how can we better coordinate
science, knowledge sharing, discovery, whether that's from more the data side of things,
as well as from a funding perspective to really pursue some of these moonshot
type of ideas. And I guess tying it back to the big question or kind of theme of the topic
this week of what stories or narrative is DSI sharing, and then even just what projects are working on some of these really kind of
important scientific gaps or opportunities.
And by those projects making progress, that's also writing a new story that is able to be
shared and talked about too and is part of crafting this broader narrative. So these are a few different
kind of topic areas that have been top of mind for me in different conversations I've been having
lately and I would love to see more and more of this being discussed in different mediums or
different people pursuing these as individual projects. If you're interested
in any of these different ideas, definitely reach out and I would love to keep chatting on
these topics, whether that's purely from a marketing perspective. We might be launching
a DSI-related marketing kind of cohort in the next couple weeks,
partnered with Farkaster.
So be on the outlook for that.
And that's also part of what this topic is tying into of what the narratives and stories
DSI are sharing and making sure that's aligned with what's really happening is also top of
mind.
But then if you're interested in some of these other applications or project areas, there
might be other opportunities either through Muse Matrix or other folks who are also interested
in this to actually build out real solutions or implement them into your lab
if you're coming more from a scientist type of perspective. If you have additional ideas of the
stories that DSI or people in DSI, as well as outside of it, should be sharing more,
side of it should be sharing more, definitely reply down below. Just make sure that that's
on the radar of more people as well. And I personally would also be happy to help amplify
some of that too. So as I mentioned at the beginning of this space, the theme this week
is a little bit more of a contemplation reflection exercise,
as well as kind of listing out a couple different ideas that could be starting points to brainstorm
on further. This conversation isn't a one-time thing. It's a continuous part of D- Desai's evolution of just telling the story of what is Desai.
So with that, I think I might close out this space, leave some time to think on this or reply back with any other topics,
different opportunities or stories that you would like to see pursued or amplified more.
stories that you would like to see pursued or amplified more. And I'll be back here next week
at the same time with another topic. And as always, if you have ideas that you think should
be discussed, please reach out and we can get those on the schedule too. Thanks so much for
joining in. Have a great week.
